GREAT EUROPEAN FLOODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19372, 6 July 1926, Page 11

GREAT EUROPEAN FLOODS

APPALLING DAMAGE.

NUMEROUS LIVES LOST.

LARGE AREAS INUNDATED. AUSTRIA AND BALKANS. HAVOC IN GERMANY. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received 8.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z.-Sun. VIENNA. July 4. This week's downpour, of rain in the area between the Alps and the Black Sea has been the heaviest for half a century. Enormous damage has be,en done, and there have been heavy losses of human life and of live stock. The railways are inundated, bridges have been destroyed and scores of villages and towns have been flooded. Thousands of acres of land are submerged. One hundred people were drowned and 50 others were struck by lightning in Serbia.. . . , In Rumania 209 people were drowned. A message from Berlin says remarkable cloud-bursts followed a fortnight of unseasonable rains. Unprecedented floods abound Hirschberg carried away houses and concrete bridges. Five tourists, at Hermsdorf were watching the torrent from a bridge when it was swept away with them. All five were drowned. A mother who had saved her seven children at Agnetendorf went back to save a goat, but was drowned in the attempt. A further message from Berlin states that 13 persons wero killed and 50 others were injured in the village of Woltersdord, near the capital, through the collapse of a roof under which a crowd was sheltering from a thunderstorm. The roof was struck by lightning and the crowa became panic-stricken.